Clockwork
by solysal
Summary: But it was the boy she heard next: words splashed with a joy so cruel she understood .


A/N: Escaflowne is not mine. Isn't that the point?

Clockwork

"Sir, the Vione is under attack."

"Mm? Playtime so late at night?" The boy in blue who had come to fetch her shrank away, smaller, smaller. Careful now, he might disappear. She flexed a hand, heavy under layers and layers of leather (ridiculous taste that emperor had) and tilted her head. "The Oreades?"

"Waiting at the deck, sir."

"Good." The boy turned to leave. "Ah, ah. Don't be too eager. If you don't leave enough for me, I might get angry." That and a flash of teeth sent him staggering toward the door. She should have been disgusted by the inelegance of it all (her boys, after all, were _better _than that), she mused, gliding a dagger down the bottle of vino on her desk, but that could wait. No need for discord now.

She was tucking the dagger up her sleeve when her reflection caught on a window sill. A nail down her face questioned the scar along the side of her cheek. Down, down, till she could make out the bone beneath the flesh. Too soft, too thick, puckered strips of skin that tear much too easily—there was something there that shouldn't be.

_No, no_, a little girl in the corner whispered, yellow hair and hollowed eyes, _this isn't you. This isn't you_.

...

Then, clack, clack, clack, the whiff of steam, and she was staring down a demon of tortured metal, hungry and gaping as its jaws went slack to greet her. She slipped inside the red beast, and there it was—the oily tongue of metal against her skin, the clench and whir of geared teeth—nostalgia?

_This isn't you_. There was the whisper again, shedding the girl with a dull thud.

"Ready, sir?"

"Do you have to ask?" her voice said, low and lilting. "Hurry, hurry, dragons fly fast!" The lagging thrill of adrenaline she couldn't figure out, but she didn't have the time to think it through because the boy in blue had already activated the door's opening sequence, tiptoed to reach one of the levers. A rope to the neck and those toes would lift limp off the floor. He wouldn't feel a thing if it was done right. No fun in that though. All she needed—Then the sky tore open in front of her, and something deep and dying pushed her out to bid it farewell.

...

Next, heat, and a rippling through her body as the monster—as _she_ hit the ground. Not quite déjà vu, but her fingers were dancing along gaunt handles with an all but trained precision. She looked around, saw the red trickling down the defunct guymelefs behind her. Her mind was grasping for the meaning (maybe the grease that lined the leathery bodies dripping from the trees?), but she couldn't read it through the dull roar weighing down the air here in a way that kept her gasping for breath. The taste of smoke, salty sweet, and…?

_This_ _isn't you. _Oh, that doll-girl's voice was so clear, so smashed…

That's when she fell back. Down, in a heap, to a hell where a laughing boy slung his skeletal shadows all over her. The way he looked at her, like she was the life leftover from a slaughter, the air between them swooned, loving deaths murmured hot against her throat (it would be so easy to slide into one of those flames and just _burn_). But it was the boy she heard next: words splashed with a joy so cruel she _understood_.

_You can do better than that. Get up_. He was the yellow hair and hollowed eyes dragged through the mud. He would melt her away if—even if she moved. She pushed against the velvety roll of his laughter, and he smiled. _Now fight._

Shift of scenery, and all she could make out was a sword, slick with black and blood, raining down toward her—slick like the light in the blue boy's eyes before the men in black sewed them shut. He cried too much anyway, but—But, she wasn't surprised when her own sword, littering sparks all over the ground, flung it to the side. It was the least she could expect. After all, Dilandau Albatou had seen this all before—and _lived_.

So she slit through steel and screams, one thought searing through her mind. _Burn it all._ She did.

...

Then, light, harsh and unfocused in the way only daylight could be, and the bony bands of her fingers knotted into the sheets. She pushed herself up, her breath and the room mellowing into something like substance: bleached silhouettes wept, and then, color. An armoire in front, a divan in the corner. An adjunct, she remembered now, of the Asturian royal estate. She pulled one of her curls taught before her face just to be sure: always a paler yellow than her brother's (she took after their mother, he assured her with a smile softer than all the fabric pomp and circumstance wrapped around her waist), but not white.

Not white.

She closed her eyes, and then—accoutrement of bodice and gown already draped against the nightstand—began to dress. The fluttery rustle of chiffon filled the room; then, the shut of a door and a lady stepping out into the hall, the sun in her eyes as she greeted the servants.

Celena Schezar hadn't woken up screaming in years. At least, that's what she let her brother think.


End file.
